A general overview and some high-level guidance to maintaining the Tallgrass
Prairie Preserve Interactive Information Kiosk is provided by this maintenance
manual. Every attempt has been made to use Open Source software on this project,
in order to avoid additional costs associated with license fees, and to eliminate
the need to be connected to the Internet for license verification.

Important for this particular project is an interest in computers,
especially an interest beyond the confines of the Microsoft Windows operating
system. Knowledge of UNIX and Linux is a big advantage though not absolutely
necessary. A willingness to learn something new is the most important attribute
of the person maintaining the kiosk.

More detailed information about the Ubuntu GNU-Linux operating system can
be found in numerous places on-line. beginning with the links listed in the
Referenced Documents section, below. Best place to start is with the Ubuntu
Pocket Guide & Reference, which is written specifically to cover
the version of Ubuntu used to support the kiosk.

For expository purposes, kiosk systems are divided into two principal areas:
hardware and software. Each functional area is discussed in more detail below.
Overall, the system is designed to operate continuously, without intervention
by daily users of the kiosk. Inevitably, the hardware system will fail as parts
age and wear out; when this happens, this maintenance manual should serve to
help the person who undertakes to restore the kiosk to working order.

Open Source software and industrial grade hardware were selected for the kiosk:
hardware for reliability and long life, software to reduce the cost of ownership
to zero. All software is free to download and use; the office applications are
part of the Ubuntu distribution and versions are available to run on both Windows, Mac,
and Linux systems. As the maintainer you should have no expenses other than time.

The Planar touchscreen controls are a series of buttons on the lower right-hand
side of the display. The top button activates and deactivates On-Screen
Display (OSD) of the settings menu. Two buttons below the menu button are
marked with arrows, allowing selection of menu items. Second button from
the bottom activates menu items. The bottom button switches the
touchscreen on and off. See the User’s Guide.

Planar guarantee their product for three years. The Nature Conservancy purchased
the touchscreen in August 2009.

Stereo loudspeakers are integrated into the touchscreen. Each channel is capable
of producing 1 Watt of audio power output.

The manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning recommend use of a soft
dry cloth only. This proved inadequate for smeared fingerprints. Soft-paper kitchen
towels work well, slightly damp with a small drop of soft handsoap. Application
of dry kichen towel removes any residual moisture.

As you can see from the picture above, the PC
isn’t the usual lap-top or desk-top computer. It is a compact fanless computer,
designed as a low noise, long life system.

The only moving part is the hard disk drive.
Most disks today have a MTBF
rate of better than 1-million hours. If the disk survives for the first few weeks of
operation then there is a good chance that it will continue operating, unless it is
subjected to excessive heat or physical shock.

This computer is equipped with 256-Mbytes of main memory, a 500 MHz
AMD Geode LX800
CPU, two Ethernet ports, two
USB ports,
a VGA port, stereo audio line-in, and
stereo audio line-out.

Low voltage DC electrical power is provided to the
Fit-PC by an external power module or block, as shown in the illustrations above,
plugged into the surge suppressing power strip.

The stereo audio line-out is connected to the audio input of the touchscreen monitor, as
shown in the hardware system block diagram above.

One of the USB ports is expanded
by connection to the USB hub, to allow more than two simultaneous USB connections. This
is especially important if it becomes necessary to attach a mouse, keyboard, and USB memory
stick at the same time.

D-Link manufactures the USB hub. It is a
generic product and most well-known brand names should work as well. Though the
hub can be powered from the Fit-PC USB port, the port has insufficient power to
operate several devices at the same time, therefore the hub is equipped with an
external power supply module or block, as shown in the pictures above, plugged
into the surge suppressing power strip.

The keyboard is connected to the USB hub
and stowed as shown above during normal operation.
You will need the keyboard for maintenance activities and changes to the kiosk beyond
normal user interaction. A mouse is available, but it is disconnected from the USB hub so
as to avoid conflicting actions with the touchscreen. The mouse and the mouse-pad are
stored in the brown cardboard box that can be seen on the left-hand side of the
lower shelf in the pictures above.

The electrical power surge suppressor is a generic product. Any similar power strip
should work. Some thought was given to provision of an uninterruptible power supply, but
it was deemed an unnecessary complication.

The Ubuntu operating system is a free, Open Source alternative to the Microsoft Windows
and Apple Macintosh operating systems for personal computers. It provides the same
the functionality and ease of use of its commercial competitors, with the added benefits of high reliability
and availability. As the phrase has it: "It just works and keeps on ticking." Version
8.10, code-named Intrepid Ibex, underlies and supports the functions of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
Interactive Information Kiosk.

Ubuntu is maintained on a six-month release schedule. As of this writing, the current
version is 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope. Do not upgrade from Intrepid; the Fit-PC hardware doesn’t
work with the new version. In any event, there is no need to upgrade because the
system is working well without problems; it isn’t connected to the Internet and
is therefore at no risk of compromise by malicious software.

A good introduction and overview of Ubuntu is provided by the Ubuntu
Pocket Guide referenced above.

Full access to all parts of the system is granted to the administrator
account upon entry of the administrator’s password for utilities and other programs
that require super-user privileges. Administrator login is as listed here:

Username: administrator

Password: tgpkiosk

The administrator account is used to configure the system as described here:

Create and configure the visitors account.

Accounts are created and managed by selecting from the menus: System|Administration|Users and Groups

Set automatic login of the visitors account.

Automatic login is set by selecting from the menus: System|Administration|Login Window
then selecting the Security tab, followed by checking the
Enable Automatic Login box and then selecting the
visitors account from the drop-down
User menu. This action is
needed only for new systems and is unecessary for currently operating kiosks.

Download and install the touch-screen calibration utility. You will
need the system temporarily connected to the Internet for this to work as
described here.

Use the Synaptic Package Manager, System|Administration|Synaptic Package Manager
to download and install the xserver-xorg-input-evtouch
touchscreen driver for the X.Org/XFree86 server. This action is
needed only for new systems and is unecessary for currently operating kiosks.

Run touch-screen calibration by selecting from the menus:System|Administration|Calibrate Touchscreen
and follow the instructions to calibrate the screen. Connection to the
Internet is not required for this operation. Recalibration of
the touch-screen is only needed if the area under a touch isn’t activated.
It is important to disconnect the mouse while performing calibration, to avoid
conflicting signals.

The visitors account is unprivileged with maximum
restrictions. A visitor has no need for access to anything other than the kiosk
pages and should be excluded from other areas of the system. Although
visitors login is automatic, the account does have
a username and password:

Username: visitors

Password: visitors

The visitors account is used to store the kiosk
visitor information pages and to configure the system as described here:

Store the kiosk visitor information pages.

Kiosk visitor pages are stored in the folder kiosk.

Point the FireFox home location to the Topic Index of the kiosk visitor pages.

Set the Home Page of the FireFox web-browser to: file:///home/visitors/kiosk/Topic-Index.html

Open the startup applications utility by selecting the menu sequence:System-->Preferences-->Startup Applications

Select the Startup Programs tab.

Click on the Add button.

Add firefox to the command box and click on close.
FireFox should start automatically next time you login to the
visitors account or the machine restarts.

Disable the screensaver.

Open the screensaver utility by selecting the menu sequence:System-->Preferences-->Screensaver
and uncheck the boxes
Activate screensaver when computer is idle and
Lock screen when screensaver is active then
click on the Close button.

Set the audio volume to maximum.

Click on the speaker symbol on the right-hand side of the panel across
the top of the screen.

Kiosk information pages presented to visitors are constructed as a series of
slides with active areas mapped and linked forwards to the next slide, backwards
to the previous slide, and home to the topic index. Slide construction is explained
in the following sections.

Organization of files is essential to efficient maintenance of the kiosk system.
The directory (or folder) structure is shown in the diagram to the right. If you
allow the files to become a jumbled mess, you will succeed in making your life
difficult as System Adminstrator.

Notice that each topic is given its own directory in which all the relevant
files reside. These directories automatically sort themselves as a topic
index, when viewed with the file explorer application. As a whole, the
topic index is collected together in a top-level directory named
kiosk.

When you need to add a new topic, just create a new directory in the kiosk
with the same name as the new topic. Follow the procedures outlined below to
expand your topic.

Component parts, as used to create the final slides, are stored in the topic
directories. This is illustrated in the diagram to the right.
Bison-Source is a sub-directory of the
Bison topic used
to store the source files of the slide, as you might infer from the name of
the directory.

Bison-Slide.odp is an Open Office Presentation
file, similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. The files Bison-Slide-01.xcf,
etcetera, are files native to The GIMP, similar to Adobe PhotoShop.

At the same level as the Bison-Source sub-directory
are the working files that comprise each slide: files that have
.html file extensions are the files displayed by the
FireFox web-browser, files with .png extensions are the
graphical images displayed by the .html files.

Horizontal and vertical slide dimensions are restricted to 800 by 600 pixels.
Reason for this is to ensure that the slides can be displayed at most common
resolutions without causing the browser to display scroll-bars at the right side and
bottom of the screen.

There is more one way to do this. It so happens that this particular method
exposed the 6th Grade students to the maximum number of different tools and
aspects of computing; they received an example, some verbal explanation, and told
to get cracking. Darwinian Pedagogy in action. By contrast, you are getting detailed
written instructions, with diagrams and pictures fully labelled. Surprisingly, most of the students
and one teacher were still standing two years later, for which they can thank themselves for their
persistance and their principal teacher without whose exceptional dedication this
project would not have succeeded. Other less adventurous teachers declined
similar opportunity.

As a method it is simple, straightforward, and fairly low-level,
using an easy to understand process, enumerated below:

Create a slide-show using the Open Office Presentation program. Use the Presentation
program to organize your slides and optimize the layout. If you must,
you can use Microsoft PowerPoint to do the same thing. Use the existing
slides as examples of what you need to do. Your trail has been blazed
by 6th Grade school students. For the touch-targets you should use large figures as
the students have done; visitors will be using fat fingers instead of styli to
operate the kiosk.

Export each slide to its own file in .png format. Use a consistent file naming
convention such as Bison-Slide-01.png, Bison-Slide-02.png, etc.

Open the .png
file using the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), or Adobe PhotoShop.

Resize the image to 800x600 pixels and save it in
.png format.

Insert guide-lines around the navigation arrows as shown in the picture.
You do this by clicking and dragging the vertical and horizontal rulers onto the
picture. The squares made by the intersecting guide-lines represent the touch-targets
on each slide.

Position the mouse pointer at the top-left and bottom-right corners of
the guide squares. Write down the XY coordinates shown in the bottom left-hand corner
of the window; you will need these values later on.

Save the GIMP file with the same name but this time in
.xcf format.

Move the .png
files up one directory to the same level as the source directory.

Copy one of the .html
files, inspect the file, and modify it to match the slide you are working
on; the contents are self-explanatory. Put the file in the same directory as the
.png file.

Change the map coordinates in the .html file to match the numbers you
obtained in step 3.3.

Change the kiosk topic-index .html file, by adding a new bullet and link to the first
slide of the new slide presentation.

This section on slide construction represents much more information than was provided to the
6th Grade students; even so it still requires the interpretation of an adventurous
spirit, since it doesn’t provide minute step-by-step detail. Expect
errors and make sure that you test all the links. It’s not
particularly difficult. It just requires patience and attention to detail.
Good luck.